As I was reading “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” I compared several aspects of the story to some of my own personal experiences. This piece by Sedaris offers many ways that one can look back into their own lives and see how they were different or similar. For example, one could describe how their own foreign language teacher acted while trying to teach the class.
As for myself, I found that Sedaris’s story could be compared to my personal experiences of teaching environment, teaching style, and language.
I took my third year Spanish class in my home country of the United States of America, while Sedaris decided to take his French course in Paris, France. Even though my teacher spoke Spanish for most of the class, and that Sedaris’ teacher spoke only French during class, Sedaris was bound to learn the language he was attempting to learn much faster and more easily than I was, for he had to listen to French wherever he went, for he lived in France. I lived in America, so it was unlikely that I was ever going to hear Spanish outside of my class.
When I entered my third year of Spanish, my teacher, like Sedaris’, decided to help teach us by speaking the language we were trying to learn. My teacher only spoke in English in order to further explain directions that we may not have understood in Spanish, unlike Sedaris’ teacher, who never deviated from speaking French in the class. Also, our teachers had a different method of teaching us the language. While my teacher used the language to teach us, ask us how our day was, and similar normal things, Sedaris’ teacher decided not only to teach them in French, but to also insult them no matter how they performed.
Although a minor aspect in the comparison between Sedaris and I, it is worthy to point out that although we were both learning a language that was much different from our native language (which for both of us was English), Sedaris was learning French in his piece and I was learning Spanish, two different, yet occasionally similar languages.
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